Beta's breath came hard and fast as she and Switchblade dashed through the darkened maze of the Supercomputer underworld, Switchblade a few feet ahead of her. The blue Guardian hugged her datapad to her chest, knowing that she couldn't lose the valuable information it contained. Her foot caught a piece of rubble and she twisted her ankle, crashing hard to the ground and sending the datapad spinning out of her hands and across the floor to Switchblade. Without a word, the pale sprite picked it up and ran off with it.

Beta only felt a moment of resentment; it made sense - the datapad was more important than she was, in the long run. If Switchblade had stopped to help her, that would have slowed them down, something that they couldn't afford. Still, that didn't mean that she intended to be captured; like most Guardians, she would do anything to avoid being infected.

"Chimera," she whispered to her keytool, hearing the footfalls of the viral troops coming closer. "La…" A sharp kick to her midsection broke off the word as she gave a pained intake of breath. A gloved hand roughly reached down and plucked the keytool from her wrist, nearly crushing it.

"We can't have any of that, now can we?" the sprite said sweetly, his voice mocking. Beta struggled fiercely as her wrists were locked behind her back and she was hauled to her feet. By no means was her ankle strong enough to support her weight, but she doubted the virals cared. Beta had to stifle another gasp as she saw the leader of her captors. His flamed-coloured hair framed his yellow face, which was set off against his shimmering black and gray jumpsuit. *A WebSurfr?* she thought in despair. So the rumors had been true - and she was in no position to inform her fellow resistance members of such.
 

 

Switchblade walked into Griffin's office unannounced, flinging the datapad on his desk. The raven-haired leader of their rebellion looked up at her. "What is this?"

"Beta's findings," Switchblade replied curtly. "Pack up, we have to moved. They've caught her."
 

 

The captured Guardian limped up the steps to the Principal Office, wondering what would happen if she tried to grab one of her guards' guns. She had sworn that she would never be infected, even if that meant her life… Beta winced as they prodded her to move forward, causing her to stumble on her weak ankle. She hoped that the rebellion would go on. Daemon had to be stopped, whether or not she was there to see the end result. The supervirus had done too much damage and was far too close to controlling all of the known Net.

She was inside the Principal Office now. Daemon's viral mark was everywhere; it seemed to permeate the very walls of the building. How typical that one of the first things she would to would be to take over the Principal Office, thereby ensuring her complete control of the Supercomputer. The WebSurfr was walking in front of her. Beta permitted herself one hysterical moment as she wondered what it was like to be infected, now that it started to sink in that she probably would be. Would the real 'her' still be there, a helpless witness to Daemon's wishes? Or would she merely become a mindless drone, forgetting everything from her previous life?There was no time left for thinking; she was led into the main room of the Principal Office, where Daemon sat waiting. Beta had never seen Daemon, but the rumors of her gruesome appearance didn't even begin to do her justice.

When she was first led into the room, half of the supervirus' face was hidden in shadow as Daemon bent over her desk. The side that was facing Beta was a twisted, unruly mass of wires, making her features hideously deformed. This was bad enough, but when the virus looked up to see her captive, she became more horrifying. Where the right side of her face was the ugliest a virus could possibly be, the left was inhumanly beautiful, every feature perfect. Somehow, this made her all the more terrifying.

"So. It would appear that we have another one of you pitiful renegades in our clutches." Daemon's voice kept slipping from almost musical to a horrible, grating shriek - a vocal representation of her physical features. Beta said nothing, merely kept her back straight and stared resolutely ahead. She wouldn't let Daemon get to her. The virus rose, walking over to her with a limp, practically dragging her right leg behind. Beta repressed a shudder and managed not to flinch as Daemon approached her, staring directly into her eyes.

"Have they damaged your vocal chip?" she purred. "Surely, a great Guardian like you knows how to speak."

"I have nothing to say."

Daemon straightened and plucked the Guardian icon from Beta's jumpsuit, holding it between two of her clawed fingers and examining it. "Clean programming; how rare. Do you know how long it has been since I infected one of the *noble* Guardians?" Her tone was almost conversational, and when Beta said nothing, she went on. "Oh, I'm sure you do. You rebels are so well informed, aren't you."

Turning, she walked back to the desk and set the icon down without infecting it. "I grow so weary of only virals to talk to. You seem like an intelligent enough sprite; goodness knows I wouldn't mind a little female chit-chat." Her words were mocking. "I could be persuaded to leave you uninfected should you tell me the location of your friends."

"I will tell you nothing."

"Spoken like a true drone," Daemon mocked. "I will find them sooner or later; why not spare yourself the agony of infection? I know how much you Guardians loathe it."

Beta blinked calmly and focused on Daemon. "If I can turn that sooner into later, I may have bought them some time. If my life is what it takes to defeat you, so be it."

Laughing, Daemon clapped her hands together slowly, as if amused by Beta's show. "My, my, my. We have a live one here, don't we? Haven't lost your spirit yet? I almost admire you, Guardian. Pity I have to break you like the others." She shrugged and picked up Beta's icon. "Oh well, I'll get over it. Many an arrogant Guardian like yourself has come in here; I assure you, all have left infected."

Her fist closed tightly over Beta's icon and the Guardian slumped to the ground, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as the infection spread like fire through her body.
 

 

Inside the long-closed Diner, Dot and Bob sat across from each other in one of the booths. Occasionally, a binome would walk by, but for the most part, the darkened streets were silent. In the Diner, almost all the lights were off and both Cecil and Enzo had turned in for the night. Frisket was snoozing in front of the door, which would probably pose a problem later, should Bob wish to leave, but for now, it didn't matter.

"It's just not fair, is it?" Dot asked softly, gently massaging Bob's hands.

"What isn't?"

She smiled sadly. "I just thought that now that Megabyte was gone, that we'd have some time to ourselves. For peace. We fought so long and hard to get here and now we have to jump right back into a war again."

Bob was quiet for a moment. "The people Daemon is terrorizing don't have the chance for peace," he said at last.

"I know that," Dot murmured. "I just wish we had the leisure to wait."

"We don't," Bob sighed with a shake of his head. "I wish we had that comfort too. I want to be able to stay here in Mainframe and just relax. But we can't. If anything, Ray won't let us. He didn't say anything, but I could tell; now his people are in danger and he wants to help them."

"What about you?" Dot asked, looking up into his eyes. "The Guardians are your people; don't you want to help them?"

"I do…" Bob said slowly. "The Net needs the Guardians. We're trained to deal with things that others aren't. It's our function. But…"

"But?"

"It's been so long. I'm starting to wonder if it's too late for them. There certainly aren't that many left."

"That we know of."

"Everything we've heard, Daemon's been thorough. I just can't imagine that she'd overlook someone…"

Dot sighed and stood up. "Let's not talk about this, Bob. These problems have been ruling our lives for too long; let's just forget about it for now."

Bob smiled and hugged her. "I never thought I'd hear you say that, Miss Responsibility."

Dot shook her head. "Even I want to get away from work for awhile," she said wryly.

"I'd better go…" Bob said after a moment, looking towards the door.

Dot glanced at the time and sighed. "You'd better. We probably should be awake tomorrow morning."

They walked over to the door and stood there awkwardly for a moment. After a bit, Bob leaned over and gave Dot a quick peck on the lips before leaving. Dot smiled slightly as she watched him go, stifling her laughter when he tripped over Frisket and spent the next five minutes trying to avoid being eaten.
 

 

Switchblade sat on the small cot, a bag open in her lap. The entire operation had made a quick relocation to a place that neither she nor Beta had known anything about - hopefully, this would ensure their continued safety. It was a necessary precaution; only Griffin knew everything, which was one reason why he would be protected with the lives of any of the other rebels.

In the evacuation, Switchblade had not only grabbed her own things, but those of her roommate. Looking down at Beta's few belongings, she felt a couple tears prick her eyes. When she reported to Griffin, both her pride and training hadn't allowed her to show emotion, but now that she was alone, there was no stopping the ache. Everything in her was in a rage at the fact that she hadn't stopped to help her friend, even when she knew that Beta wouldn't have wanted it that way.

Even though Beta was old enough to be Switchblade's mother, they couldn't help but becoming friends. Both had lost a great deal thanks to Daemon, and they'd helped each other out with adjusting to their new life of living on the run. They'd managed to squeeze out of so many scrapes before this, it was hard to believe that she'd actually been captured.

Taking a deep breath, she began taking things out of the bag and setting them on the bed next to her. It felt weird to be doing this - as if her friend was dead already - but Griffin had instructed her to make sure that all of Beta's information was in his hands. Most of the objects were the usual - hairbrush, a few stray bits of jewelry that the Guardian had managed to hang on to, a few old love letters, an organizer…

Switchblade hesitated on putting the organizer down. Part of her knew that it would be wrong to look, but she knew that she had to. It seemed the most logical place for Beta to store anything that wasn't in her datapad. Carefully, she opened it and typed in the password Beta had told her - "Just in case you ever need it," she had said. As she was waiting for the organizer to confirm the password, Switchblade noticed a .jpg shoved into a small pocket on the cover. The image on it was of Beta - looking younger than the one Switchblade knew, but yet noticeably the same sprite - and a young sprite, with Beta's blue skin and silver hair. The two were hugging fiercely, wide smiles on their faces as they looked at the camera. Both were in Guardian uniforms and from the sprites that she could see in the background, it appeared to be from a graduation ceremony from the Guardian Academy.

Her fingers trailing over the image, Switchblade didn't even hear the bleep that the organizer made, letting her know that the password was correct. Beta had spoken sparingly of her past; she had never mentioned having a husband or boyfriend, let alone a child. But the family resemblance was obvious, from their skin and hair colour to the sparkle in their eyes.

"You're her son, aren't you?" Switchblade murmured to the image, her voice slightly choked.
 

 

Matrix walked slowly into Al's Wait and Eat, slinging the swinging door open with one hand. Al's waiter blinked his one eye and looked up sleepily, stifling a yawn with one hand. "Hello, Matrix," the binome drawled slowly.

"What'll it be?"

"Shake," the large sprite replied shortly, not feeling much like talking as he took a seat in the corner.

"One energy shake, comin' right up… You hear that, Al?"

"What!?"

Matrix sighed. It was odd how some things could stay exactly the same, and others… Growling softly under his breath, he slammed a fist down on the table. The binomes around him looked at the sulking sprite nervously before getting up and relocating to a different area of the restaurant. He had given AndrAIa a day to cool off before going to apologize to her. Not only would she not look at him, the Game sprite had rather snidely announced that she had things to do and would he kindly get out of her way. He still didn't understand what validation her accusations had. So what if he was always trying to protect her? She, of all people, should be able to see his reasons behind that. AndrAIa had been all he'd had for so long, why shouldn't he be protective of her?

When Matrix had tried that angle, AndrAIa had filled in "protective" with "over-protective". As for being self-centered when it came to the Games… Matrix paused. He couldn't think of a counter argument for that, outside of the fact that he hadn't ever guessed something was wrong. AndrAIa would have argued that if he loved her as much as he claimed to, he would have noticed, but even looking back now, Matrix couldn't see anything. She'd hidden any fears very well, it seemed. Women were just impossible to understand. He'd never understood Dot, and now he didn't understand AndrAIa. Matrix wasn't sure ANYONE understood Mouse. If only he could talk to one of the others… But Bob and Dot were perfectly happy, it seemed, and he doubted Enzo was at all wise in the ways of the opposite sex. Raytracer was also out of the question; even if Matrix WAS willing to talk to him, he didn't want to admit any problems between him and AndrAIa to the Surfr.

"Here ya go, Matrix, one energy shake," Al's waiter said slowly, placing the cup in front of Matrix. The renegade looked at it for a moment before glancing at Al's waiter.

"Do you know anything about women?"

 

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